Slashdot Mirror
What If Yoda Ran IBM?
Esther Schindler writes to mention that one IT leader who came from big business found himself in quite another world when he transitioned into a smaller business, specifically with respect to the amount of attention from their vendors. He presents an amusing approach with a familiar twist. "Not only are the IBMs of the world leaving money on the table, they're also risking future sales. The IT leaders at small organizations will in many cases be employed by larger organizations someday. Why alienate them? Vendors could engage IT leaders in small organizations now and build brand loyalty. How could they make such a business model work? Let's imagine (with apologies to George Lucas) what Yoda might do if he were running a large consultancy."
Which might be a Good Thing.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Every quarter, each publicly traded corporation must feed JabbaTheStockAnalysts, who will deem them more, or less capitalized by their whimsy, the weather, and other important factors.
Yoda doesn't have a chance.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I was always wondering what's the name of that guy with the big ears, making the computers run..
Tag: stillsuckitwould :-)
These build a healthy industry in which you can play. Complete dominance of an industry is unhealthy (look at Old IBM or M$). Having competition gives you feedback which is vital for the long term success of a company. Trying to be all things to all people dilutes your business strategy too. Far better to leave some opportunites unexploited.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
All Yoda would have to do is look at any company and just say: "No, too old"
Some of the companies would then get really bent out of shape and turn evil later, while other ones would just annoy Yoda until he gave up and threw them a support contract he never has to fulfill since he dies!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Well, let's see. If Yoda ran IBM of the 1980's like he ran the Jedi Counsel, he'd probably remain fixed in his devotion to the old ways, overlook some growing threat and then watch helplessly as the order he watched over was overcome and twisted into an empire of unimaginable might.
Wow. Thank goodness that didn't happen.
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
Let's imagine (with apologies to George Lucas) what Yoda might do
Don't bring George Lucas into this. You'll end up with a lanky, obnoxious rastafarian running the place.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Run IBM I do.
Feel the force...force of Cell processor.
Conference not with a phone, but with the force.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
The company would be called Machines Business International, Yes.
The CEO would be Steve Ballmer, the company would be run out of Redmond, WA, and it would market the dominant desktop OS in the world. But Yoda would think he was still in control running things out of Yarmonk.
On the other hand, their servers would run quite well in damp conditions.
Edith Keeler Must Die
IBM's #1 advantage is they are on every government and big corporate preferred vendor list, because they have entrenched sales forces who are excellent at pitching to upper management. They are great with the mainframes too.
Other than that, what's good about them?
Servers:
IBM xSeries are junk
IBM iSeries are treading water and relegated to vertical markets
IBM pSeries makes Sun look cheap.
Software:
Tivoli - Sucks
DB2 - Ok
Lotus - Sucks
Rational - Double Sucks
Consulting services are the same as any big vendor. If you're the CIO of a small company, you're simply insane to expect IBM to give you the time of day -- why would they? They make more money collecting maintenance on shelfware from a big bank than they would providing actual service to you!
IBM has some really smart people tucked away somewhere. But to an IBM customer, dealing with IBM is like dealing with the IRS.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
"During my first year at Sequoia I concentrated on improving the processes that affect operational excellence." ... I annoyed the F*&%( out of the people who did the real work.
"With these processes largely working, I must now spend my time providing a technological vision" .. when they started ignoring me, I came up with lots of useless documents, to pretend that I was actually worth the ridiculous sum I was paid.
But once our mighty Vista of Death is completed ... no one will be able to stand up against
Emperor Gates ...
We will find and finally destroy iRebels!
I have been saying this same thing for years with regards to IBM's AS/400 platform. Anybody who has every worked with one of these machines will tell you that they are absolutely, hands-down, the greatest database box available today.
But.
The only people running Os/400 are huge financial institutions who's annual I.T. budget ranges in the Millions of dollars. I can't get a copy of OS/400 to play with. Just can't do it. Not unless i want to spend a month's salary on it. Even then, i can't really DO anything with it (maybe have one connection to the database at a time).
Now take linux/mysql. I use this combo ALL OVER THE PLACE. Any time i need to throw a database down, its a linux box with Mysql. Every. Single. Time.
Why?
Because i grew up playing around in redhat, suse, mandrake, and gentoo boxes and I feel like i know linux inside and out (although i'm sure i don't). I have complete confidence in myself to order some hardware, install a distro on it, and have a database up and crunching within a day.
I have NEVER tried this with an IBM product because i simply CAN'T! I can't risk that significant of a portion of my budget for a toy that I may or may not be able to get working in time.
I guess it works the same as what happened to my beloved coke machine today. They upped the price to $1.25. Nobody drinks coke anymore except the people who are REALLY addicted to it.
Bastards.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Learning to identify your core competencies so you can leverage your resources in an effort to devlop effective intra-deparmental synergy
thus allowing you to devote time to identifying emerging paradigms is what being an MBA is all about
Belthize
Yod is a Jewish letter. Now, it's the first letter in the proper name of God (AKA the Tetragrammatron), but it's not the Divine Name itself. I don't know if it's used as a shorthand (because pious Jews even go so far as to write G-d instead of God), but I haven't seen it used that way.
He'd dual Bill Gates with a lightsaber?
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Actually, I think he could do it equally well in C++, following some special guidelines. Within a given program, either all loops would either begin with "do", or none of them would. In addition, Yoda's code would never use exception handling.
Big Co. pays more attention to potential customers who actually have money to spend with them. Also, some products are out of reach of small companies.
Wah. If you don't know that a 17 year old, dressed scruffily, who hasn't shaved for 5 days, will receive less attention at a Mercedes dealership than the nattily dressed 40-ish man, you just don't live in the real world. Sure: the 17 year old could be Bill freaking Gates, or a rockstar. Or might become one some day, but will have been so soured on the treatment received that they vow never to buy a Mercedes.
But frankly, almost all of the time, talking to the 17 year old is a waste of time at best, and at worst you lose the customer that is really ready and willing to spend money with you because you've ignored them.
Y, it sucks. So it goes. You might argue that one of the ways that Microsoft got as popular as they did with CIO types is because everyone uses them at home, so 17 year olds that get their start troubleshooting home computers go on to CIO jobs and stick with Microsoft because they know it. But, frankly, if that was all of the answer Apple would rule the world--everyone in a certain generation used them at school, but it did not help their adoption in enterprise.
btw: can we stop linking to CIO mag, please? It has the absolute worst S/N ratio of any online mag out there, and the article content generally isn't that good either.
--
$tar -xvf
If IBM could make money providing services to size X companies, they would.
If IBM doesn't want your business, take your business elsewhere.
And isn't developing a disaster recovery plan his job?
Let me see, now that he's got the whole "operational excellence" thing sorted out and he's made the "Executive Leadership Team" he wants to sit around all day dangling a whole $25K infront of consultants instead of, i don't know, fiquring out how to implement a disaster recovery plan .
"With such a small shop I have to spend a great deal of my time maintaining operational excellence." ...plugged out the the kettle from the UPS and plugged the server back in.
"During my first year at Sequoia I concentrated on improving the processes that affect operational excellence." ...stopped answering user queries with "Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?"
"With these processes largely working, I must now spend my time providing a technological vision for Sequoia." ... 1 week surfin' = 3 slide vision Powerpoint.
"As you can imagine, creating a fully functional disaster recovery plan requires an enormous amount of time--and, as I noted above, I've been focused on operational excellence, not long-term strategic planning." ... No, we have never tested restoring from the backups.
You know what happened? IBM consultants met someone a bovine coprologist even mightier than them, and that scared them.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Posting as AC to protect ex-employer and his clients.
We were engaged to develop a large web app for a large not-for-profit (in the Care Sector) to replace their aged tape based mini-computers. We suggested IBM hosted services for hosting because of the incredible uptime you get with Linux VMs running on S390. IBM did not want to talk to the NFP directly however, despite their large (for that sector) annual budget. They wanted to have us acting as middlemen, for no apparent reason we could see. It was almost as if they didn't want to be seen 'hanging out with the spastic guy' - it was very weird.
I heard (I wasn't in the meeting where it was allegedly said by IBM) that IBM was only going to deal directly with large customers (i.e. Fortune 500 and Governments), and was building a network of 'Partners' who would manage 'smaller' clients. My colleague had the impression that 'manage' meant 'accept all risk'.
Have you seen Yoda's hands? He'd have to use the Force just to type all those parentheses!
I noticed from the article that $25,000 was the budget for implementing a fully functional plan. In addition the consultants must be experienced. Developing the plan is his job but I'm guessing his non-profit is not only cheap but has unrealistic expectations regarding what a disaster recovery plan that is fully functional entails. Being realistic, if their IT infrastructure gets wiped out by a flood, why bother with disaster recovery...they probably don't have the budget to replace anything before the insurance kicks in let alone have any type of backup sites/redundant infrastructure/replacement personnel available.
Another implication of the article is that only large consulting firms can do a quality job that adheres to best practices. "I'd like access to the same expertise that my colleagues at larger companies have." Could he really mean, he'd like the same expertise that his colleagues have at larger companies but for $15/hr. Isn't that what Craigslist is for?
I got out my bullshit bingo card and almost won...
strategic concerns
providing outstanding technology to our colleagues
strategic value
operational excellence
operational excellence
technological vision
technical vision
business vision
operational excellence
tried-and-true management principles
best practices
If only the same phrases weren't used over and over.
His lack of vision would result in the employees getting murdered, and he would go hide in a swamp.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I agree with you completely about IBM, but Coke?
"I guess it works the same as what happened to my beloved coke machine today. They upped the price to $1.25. Nobody drinks coke anymore except the people who are REALLY addicted to it."
Upped? Let's see, Coca-Cola was introduced in 1886 at $0.05. In today's money, that's $1.09. Wow, a whopping 15% price increase over a mere 120 years! Yow!
They kept the price the same for 70 years despite hugely fluctuating costs.
Wait, that's price per serving. Initially Coke was sold in 6 ounce servings. So in today's money, it would actually be $2.18 per 12 ounce can. So it's really 44% cheaper per ounce than 120 years ago. You were spoiled by them keeping the price at exactly 5 cents for 70 years, but after they started raising prices, they actually tracked slower than inflation, overall.
Yes, I know big numbers are scary, but it's called inflation, and it's not just the Coca-Cola company being mean.
This CIO is engaging the wrong type of firm for what he wants. I work for a "Premier IBM Business partner" in Lansing, MI and we do this type of work all the time. We put together HA/DR solutions and serve some surprisingly large customers despite our simple business partner status.
Big blue takes a pass on work that is "this small", but that's what the partner network is for. We don't have the resources for huge projects, but we are perfectly geared for projects of this scope. Not only that, but we are focused enough to deliver quality product and quality customer service where big blue cannot. Additionally, due to our having a small but long-serving tech staff, we are not "green" as the writer complains. An organization the size of IBM simply is ineffective at serving projects of this size.
He should have, or the IBM reps he was in discussion with, contacted an IBM business partner in his area that could have helped him. IBM Business partners have always been part of IBM's strategic vision and the author of this piece completely ignores them and the role they play.
This guy is an idiot and I have no sympathy for him.
He has what is a small to medium business and wants the 900-pound gorilla of the consulting business to cater to him? Turn this around. What is wrong with all those small to medium consulting businesses? Are they too small for his company to pay attention to them?
Hypocrite.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Okay, look at the reality of what this guy is asking for:
Sales time. Believe it or not, good sales people cost a lot of money. You have the choice of hiring a bad salesperson, who doesn't know what he's talking about or doing, or a good one. So a salesperson will run you, even in a crappy small company, $60k per year (plus 20% for bennies and taxes). Now, IBM needs someone who is, shall we say, better than good. They have lots of products, and they have to be able to deal with everyone from an analyst to a CIO. Not only that, but they have team behind them, usually comprised of some inside people and a sales engineer or two, to answer questions.
So, realistically, you have about $500,000 in salaries, commissions, and benefits in a small sales team.
Let's divide that by $25k. 25/500 = 20. That means that the sales guy, just to cover his costs, has to sell 20 deals a year to small businesses to make a living. Oh, wait. That's not the case. He needs to make a decent profit, as well. Lets put it at 25% or so, conservatively. So we're up to $625,000, or 25 deals a year.
Oh, wait. That doesn't include the salaries of the engineer who does the work. Tack on an extra $150k or so for a top notch "Jedi Master". And that would be cheap. So were' up to $650k plus 25% margin, or $812,500. Or about 32.5 deals per year.
Now, we all know that even a lightsabre wielding Jedi Master sales guy won't close every deal. So lets say, which is a huge gimme, that he can close 50% of the deals he is given. So he must now, conservatively, talk to 65 customers a year, bare minimum, to earn back his money and make a little profit.
Oh, shit, we forgot expenses. You know, office space, cell phones, internet, computers, support, travel, lunches, dinners, visits to strip clubs.
Tack on another $50k per year for that. Or 2 more deals closed (we're up to 34.5, if you were paying attention) or 69 customers talked to if he was lucky.
That means we're averaging more than a deal closed per week, and, let me tell you, it doesn't happen that way.
And we haven't even scratched the surface of expenses, including things like marketing, customer acquisition costs, back end support costs.
The reason that IBM doesn't do this isn't because they don't want to. Its because they *CAN NOT*. This is not their business. They have a defined business plan. I can guarantee you that nowhere in that plan do they deal directly with SMB's for $25k deals.
Instead, they have a very established partner network to deal with this. And some of those partners are quite good, quite knowledgeable, and employ guys with as much if not more experience than some of those IBM engineers. Sure, there are bozos. But if you do due dilegence in selecting a partner, you should be able to eliminate those quickly and quietly, especially if you have big business experience.
Note: all of the big boys have a partner network. IBM, HP, EMC, Cisco. Plus all the others. Every single one. Some of them have gone to the extent of putting their top partners into their traditional stronghold space of Fortune 1000. Cisco is notable for having put partners into their Named Accounts many years ago.
As full disclosure, I work for a company that has, at one time or the other, partnered with every one of those guys. Some of those partnerships were great. Some were a disaster. In every single one, we had highly qualified engineers with decades of experience in multi-discipline IT skills supporting our customers. In fact, one of those partners (won't name them but their one of the biggest of the big) used to slip us business on the side when the customer was unwilling to pay their rates (~$350/hour, travel exclusive) because they knew we could do the same job at less than half the cost.
The point of being a small IT specialty business is to be able to provide a service to a completely different kind of customer. My company has ~25 full time employees in house. We have 450 or so on-sit
I'm guessing you're a programmer - and if you really believe your own BS, it's no wonder you're HomelessInLaJolla. :-)
Everyone knows that IBM uses Star Trek strategy and not Star Wars strategy. That is how OS/2 bombed despite having a "Star Trek" theme and name of OS/2 3.0 Warp.
Just make an OS/3 based on Linux and call it OS/3 1.0 Yoda. Modify WINE to run the OS/2 API into Linux as well. Make sure that all IBM Windows software works on WINE, and has Linux ports as well.
Instead OS/3 1.0 Yoda on every new IBM PC sold, and also port it to the Mainframe, iSeries, pSeries, etc systems as well.
Design Yoda to be so simple that Young Jedis can use it as well as the older adults with no computer knowledge at all.
Take the Firewall/AntiVirus protection and call it "The Force".
License OS/3 1.0 Yoda to other OEMs like Compaq, Dell, Gateway, ASUS, Acer, etc.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Desks, lower would they be.
AT&ROFLMAO
You must just have had a useless admin.
We use clearcase to store and replicate our source archive globally. Its flexible branching strategies allow us to work effectively on multiple releases of our codebase, and checking files in takes a few seconds.
I don't know what this "History explorer" you're talking about is, but the graphical version representation makes it very easy to see which version you're currently looking at and which you want.
It sounds like both your admin and yourself are totally incompetent.